The Swedish church has less paying members every year, and the situation looks dire. Is the solution to tear them down? Blow them up..?

Tear down the churches
The Swedish church has fewer paying members every year, and the situation looks dire. Former Cathedral Dean in Skara and Swedish Lutheran representative at the ecumenic commission in Rome 2000, H B Hammar, says it’s time to do something and his proposal is to tear down Sweden’s 3384 churches, since only 500 of them are used and then only a few times a month.

“There’s just one solution to handle the economy,” Hammar writes in an article at Svenska Dagbladet. “Close some of the churches, put them in moth-balls. Or rather yet: Blow them up.”

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Makes you wonder if he talked to his brother... who happens to be Sweden's former Archbishop, K G Hammar. Or, maybe that's just what he did?

The Swedish people's reluctance to visit church is not a sign of their lifestyle or values in life. We had an interesting discussion in the paper about this after a book was published in 2008, called ‘The Secular Soul of the North’